


Love and Convenience

by inconsequentialvrb



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Feelings, M/M, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28331322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconsequentialvrb/pseuds/inconsequentialvrb
Summary: Roy has a proposal. Ed, some annotations.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128
Collections: Roy/Ed Week 2020





	Love and Convenience

**Author's Note:**

> so I thought I’d never be able to pull off filling more than one royed week prompt but oh man! it looks like we made it! so this idea came to me based on the line ‘if you like it then you shoulda put a ~~ring~~ leash on it’ which I had no excuse for, so I changed the title to something a bit less uh… misleading. I'll keep it on the back burner for some future collar-kink-related fic I may never write - stay tuned my dudes. 
> 
> This one's from the prompt phrase "What a surprise" 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Lower your expectations, is what people always say. Redact that — obliterate them. Vanquish every single shred of presumption your ignorant little mind has ever dared come up with; grind its bones into dust; blow the powder into the night's air and make the idea regret it was ever born out of pointless faith and untested premises. 

Roy Mustang knows all of this because, as blood, ash, and experience would have it, he’s garnered some knowledge on the unpredictability of things. Concocting a blueprint for an effective coup, for example, can be quite the obsolete effort if one fails to take man-eating homunculi, soul-swallowing Gods, and getting sent to meet one’s supposed maker by a ten-year-old wearing Sunday school shoes into account. 

Either way, this is not the Promised Day. This is just — well, _a_ day, but life has just the perfect amount of absurdity to fit in between the first cold particles of dawn and the melancholic orange lights of dusk. 

Lower your expectations down to a grand zero, he repeats to himself. 

Fear nothing. 

Walk into your home having left all remnants of your past agitation beaten to a pulp on the entrance steps, locked out by a steady deadbolt. Don’t breathe — deep air intakes only ever point towards uncertainty and uncertainty is a thing of the past. 

Edward is, according to plan, sitting across from him on the dining table after the sun has set, leaving East City submerged in a bruising sky of low magenta. They’re both nearly done poking the cadaver of their finished meals around with pointy fork spades as Ed’s brow slightly furrows, he slides his attention back to the book held on his hand after taking a thirsty gulp from the cider to his right. 

Roy doesn’t wait for the base of his sparkling glass to hit the wooden table before he says, 

“I’ve been thinking,” 

“— Mhm, didn’t know you had it in you,” Edward interrupts around the remaining liquid in his mouth without gracing him with so much as an accidental flick of the eye. 

Roy chuckles, because not only has he surpassed every single sliver of consternation, but he is also quite virtuous with the blessing of an easygoing character — yes he is. 

Edward pauses in the face of that, features quirking in something like confusion. 

“You having a stroke, old man?” He snorts. 

“I’m — excuse me?”

“What’s with the cheeriness? Did you get another one of those stars ticked on your shoulder today?” He says, squinting as if he could make it out when Roy has very clearly already discarded the military-issue jacket on the hook by the foyer about an hour ago. “Oh — no. Don’t tell me.” He goes on, lowering the open book with a thumb pressed in between its pages. “You have a twin. A happy, good twin that does things like ever-so-slightly chuckle because life is a precious joyride filled with wonder.” He theorizes.

“Edwa—”

Ed clicks his fingers at him. “Your favorite fountain-pen brand just announced a special edition product that has an ultra-soaking sparkly ink dispenser, so that you may sign a single requisition form at the top of a pile and just wait for gravity to do its thing — and then have ‘em all be all sparkly, for added effect.” He cackles. 

“No — not to any of my knowledge, at least,” Roy tries humoring him with another smile but it gets stuck on the mere intention.

“Tell me you wouldn’t like that, though. Shit, I know you like I used to know the back of my right hand,” He says while leaning back with one boot sole pressed against the edge of the table — something Roy is sure he only does because he knows he can get away with it. 

Roy exhales. “I suppose it goes without saying, but I also think we should consider getting married.” 

Edward’s mouth doesn't lose its edge as he keeps the smile on, canines glinting in the dim light. 

“What?” He says, waiting for the punchline like Mustang was ever prone to comedy.

“I think,” Roy repeats, the tips of his fingers fixed on the edge of the napkin by his side. “that it would be greatly beneficial for the both of us — pragmatically speaking, of course.” He says. “First off, you’d be able to use the extended insurance coverage that’s offered to every high-ranking officer as a bonus to their respective spouses, and — _and_ of course, that could also mean you’d get access to my monthly research budget. The government treats any, ah, consort, as a valid extension of a State Alchemist’s volition and thus grants some access to direct relatives if the primary subject wishes it so,”

“Consort,” Edward mouths. 

“Yes. Precisely.” His fingers twitch. No matter. “In addition to which, you could stop relying on the feeble pension Grumman got his arm twisted into giving you after Promised Day, effectively providing for your brother’s studies abroad as well as any and all automail upgrades and adjustments to come.” 

“Upgrades and adjustments,” Ed deadpans. 

Roy hums in response. 

This is no lie. Edward has managed after resigning from the military because Rockbell Automail sends occasional postcards to their domicile instead of expense breakdowns in relation to his leg, not because the main cities’ contract job payments are just and bountiful. Being an amputee is no cheap affair. 

When the cold is needling and the window’s freeze shut, he’s survived the gripping pain thanks to hot water and being bent over his bed, the better for Roy to leisurely press his fingers against his prostate and expertly draw little circles around it until his pained whimpers melt into moans and a trembling orgasm propels him into a dreamless, hour-long sleep. 

Helping Ed through the worst of his stump pain on the most terrible stretches of dire weather, therefore, has not been a problem for him, but Mustang knows he’s being self-indulgent — the things Edward needs the most are the ones he never asks for. 

“Another thing to consider is you’d be named my primary inheritor, meaning if death befell me before it did you, you would be named official administrator of my estate, my assets, every book in the library,” He cocks his head in the referenced room’s direction, the one responsible for having brought Ed to his doorstep with a killer excuse and a winning smile in the first place, a few years back. “and so on.” He clips. 

Ed blinks at him. 

“Should you ever find yourself in the need of a bank loan, the interest rates for payback would be practically zero and, well, I've already mentioned your access to Central Library’s classified materials would be once more, uncontested. This, of course, only happens if you are legally bound to me.” He stops and hears the screeching wheels. 

He watches, enraptured, as Ed takes another breath of air while seeming to process the offer made, one that Roy had not in any way, shape, form, or ridiculous amount of time spent rehearsing until his throat was sore. 

His eyes dart around the ceiling, his fingers curl around the base of his cider glass for a moment before he sucks all the available oxygen from the room when he breathes in again, then pauses. 

“What?” He repeats.

Roy blinks.

“Will you…” He starts, cutting himself short with a failed attempt to clear his throat of unexpected cobwebs. “Will you marry me? Edward — Elric?” He says, hoping the full, formal reference will do… Something. 

Roy tries keeping his facial expression as open as possible, something he finds very hard to achieve after an entire thirty-five years of honing his skills to do the exact opposite. How in the hell does one manage to silently broadcast the emotion known as ' _I’m serious. I am dead serious. I’ve been thinking about this for months and think my heart would spontaneously combust inside my ribcage if you were to refuse as well as if you accepted. At the same time, it doesn’t really matter — life is short and everyone is free to enact their own will as they see fit and I don’t truly care too much about it. This is fine. Anything is._ ’ 

“Are you —” Ed mouths, shaking head, pinched eyebrows. “Are you fucking asking me if that’s my _name?_ ” 

“I’m asking if you’ll be my husband,” He answers. 

“Right.” Ed drawls. “So that I can like, what, usurp your riches and dance on your grave?”

“If anyone were going to defile my resting place, I suppose it wouldn’t be the worse thing for that person to be you.” Roy says, realizing just then that the worst part of allegedly having no expectations is that _everything_ comes as a gut-kicking surprise, such as just how much he actually means that. 

“Wh — shit.” Ed screws his eyes shut. He works around a few silent letters before spelling out the ancient word, 

_“What?_ ” 

Roy opens his mouth, but at this point it is little more than an invitation for a firefly to come in and make itself a home around his molars. He closes his lips, runs his tongue against the back of his teeth, and parts them again. “I… don’t know… how much more explicit I could be about it.”

Ed just keeps staring, which, he will admit, is starting to do something to the state of his already withering nerves. 

“Well — fuck.” The words are punctuated as he crosses his arms and slouches back, looking away. “Do you have a ring and all?” He mumbles, gives Roy a quick going over from the corners of his eyes. 

“I — no.” Roy falters. “But. Well, if you’d like one, I suppose we co—”

“You’re fucking asking me without a _ring_?” His torso leans forward, expression pinching around something akin to physical pain.

“I don’t _know,_ ” Roy hisses. “I honestly didn’t think I'd get this far.” Expectations. How does that wretched saying go? You make your bed, you lie in it, you proceed to die after your brain backstabs you for the fifth time in a consecutive row.

“What the fuck?” Edward asks — genuinely. Because they’ve lived together for the better part of two years, and the milkman knows him and the mailman knows him and the newsboy does, as well. 

Because he’s loitered around his research magazines and apparently “posh” home appliances and traveled around Amestris on work-related affairs to always come back here _—_ always. A whirlwind of a person that leaves mud-tracks on his carpet when he comes in and offers a shit-eating grin to mend it because he knows it always works. And sure, they fuck sometimes. 

Plenty times. 

Pretty much every day after breakfast or dinner or both if they’re feeling up to it — if _Ed’s_ feeling especially saucy and Roy is at the actual verge of sanity. If Roy wants to implode with the frustration of not being able to simply hog-tie him on the ground or by his bedposts and weigh him down with a hundred golden ingots just so he can leave the house safe in the knowledge that Edward will be right there when he gets back. 

To have some certainty that his eyes and fluttering blond eyelashes and oddly scattered sun freckles and scar tissue and mismatched steps and tangled hair will stay still for a couple of hours, like the perfect, unchanging axis to the otherwise deranged pendulum that is the world, and so Roy can breathe. On the soft peach-like texture of his inner thighs. On the unblemished skin of his right palm. On every perfect little bone protruding from the length of his vertebrae. On the twitching corners of his mouth when he’s visibly trying not to laugh. 

They mostly sleep on the same bed now, sure. Edward knows what Roy mumbles about when he’s having nightmares. He also knows what he speaks to himself about when he can’t sleep at all. 

They still occasionally spar when boredom arises and they recycle paper by making planes. Sure. 

They’ve developed a healthy quantity of inside jokes in relation to worryingly domestic squabbles and learned each other's favorite foods and speaking of nutrients, they’ve used maple syrup as lubricant, like that time in which Roy, lost to himself and the chipped varnish of civilization, on twitching fingers and bitten lips, poured the container on the small of Ed’s back and let the rich molten liquid trickle in between his ass-cheeks on a breakfast table. It was an atrocious mess. Sticky and probably un-hygienic and way too deranged to have been so arousing and they will both lay on their graves with that secret clutched tight inside their unyielding fist. It’s a guarantee. Most importantly — it's an honor. 

Edward sometimes drops by the office and spends an entire day making everyone around him useless with chatter. Roy has accompanied him to Risembool more than once during the brass’s dull and obligated winter vacations and walked the sheep-riddled fields with his hands hidden inside his pockets, itching to reach out to his. Perhaps that was one of the moments in which he first got this terrible idea. 

Perhaps he’s over-analyzed the meaning behind the way Edward sometimes wakes him up by crouching over his body like an overzealous feline and letting his long strands of hair fall over Roy’s face, brushing, tickling, being insufferable from the crack of dawn. 

Perhaps he has misheard the supposed subtext that underlines most of what he says with an ' _I want to be with you. I want to be with you every day. Even if it sometimes makes me feel ashamed and deficient because I shouldn’t have fallen for my childhood’s CO. I shouldn’t have been in the military to begin with. I shouldn't be so warped and isolated that only you come to mind when I think of comfort. I shouldn’t be so emotionally fucked that I can only ever imagine myself trusting_ you _when I think of a partner_. _I also shouldn’t not want to change a single thing about it.'_

Of course he’s back at square one. He shouldn’t have assumed a thing. 

“No you’re — you’re right,” Roy says. “Absolutely. It was a stupid suggestion, I was only thinking — well, the health insurance package truly is a great deal, and alchemical research I don’t have much use for these days, so.” He shrugs. General Roy Mustang _shrugs_. How the mighty fall. “However, I see now that it was wrong of me to make such a proposition —”

“Hold up,” Edward leans the rest of the way forward, letting the front legs of his chair loudly slam on the floor, making the entire city _flinch_. A punctuation mark. “you dense-ass weird motherfucker,” He mutters under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “have you _heard_ me say no?” 

The clock on the adjacent wall laughs at them with its unnecessarily loud ticking. 

“No...” Roy attempts after a few moments of toying around with the first letter of that terrible, terrible little word. 

Edward rolls his eyes in disbelief. “You fucking _amateur_ —”

“It’s not exactly like I’ve ever done this before,”

“What, proposed?” 

“Well, I haven't,” Roy flares, dazed and confused by the sudden, prickling warmth on his cheeks. 

Ed clicks his tongue. “Horseshit. And bull. Horse and bull’s shits all mixed together in a petri dish—”

“Alright.” He decides, pushing himself up on an unknown impetus and going for the pen and paper sitting by the kitchen counter, the one usually used as a collaborative sort of shopping list in which Ed only ever writes ‘orange soda’ and Roy proceeds to cross the words out. 

“You want a _ring_ , Edward?” He clicks the pen. “How many carats?” 

“Dunno.” Edward shrugs with tense shoulders, leveling his gaze from where he still sits. “A shitton. Hell — why don’t you transmute one yourself?”

“Producing diamonds as well as gold are offenses punishable by many years in prison, as I’d — expect you would know.” Roy intones. 

Edward rolls his eyes again. “Weep with me over the penal code.” 

“How in the world have you made it this far,” Roy wallows, pen and paper still in hand. 

Edward does not immediately reply, rather he seems to consider the man that stands in front of him for a terrifying second. Right there is some unending food for thought, what _does_ Edward Elric think of the General who is willing to condiment his ass with honey before eating him out on a kitchen table? What about the way he pads around the townhouse on many of his sleepless nights, sticking his face under a running faucet, scribbling in the margins of his paperwork like a child, practicing some useful little arrays to sharpen his new clapping-alchemy ability and fix a crack on the wall?

Finally, he looks up, not at Roy exactly, but rather at an undefined point around his shoulder. 

“Guess I’ve had some pretty irresponsible enablers, along the way,” He finally says, still not quite looking at him but sporting the begrudging pull of a smile. He doesn’t have to look. Roy knows that tone — it’s the one he uses when finally admitting he’s coming down with an aching flu. The one he wore when telling Roy he didn’t have permission to die after making Fuhrer. The one he adopts when he’s quarter seconds away from slipping into that type of affective admission Roy knows he’s mortally terrified of uttering. The tone says plenty. The tone is all he needs; it’s all they both need. 

A second passes and Ed cocks his head in Roy’s direction. “I want a proper cake.” He says. “Layered. No stupid figurines of us unless I’m in charge of carving them and I decide what clothes you’ll be wearing.” He concludes with a straight expression. 

Roy nods once, writing it down. 

“Flavour?”

“Black forest. Or just chocolate or like a cherry sponge with red sprinkles on top.” He answers. Roy has to actively strain in order to stop himself from slipping into the mental image of hand-feeding cake samplers to Ed and wiping excess cream off of the corner of his lip because he could frankly just sit on the floor with nothing but that heinous fantasy playing on a loop in his mind’s eye for all eternity, and maybe that’s a problem. Maybe that’s what makes all of this so intimidating to begin with. 

“No fancy dressin’,” He goes on. “I’ll spit-shine my working boots and that’s all you’re gonna get. Al’s probably gonna try and blackmail me into at least wearing a bowtie but you’ll be on _my_ side during that particular argument, yeah? In fact, you’re gonna be on my side and defend all of my points every single time I get in a fight with any of my relatives from now on,” 

“I’ll remember that,” Roy says, tapping his forehead with the end of the black pen and hoping to God said scenario will never involve him having to get in between Edward and Mrs. Pinako. 

He also fails to mention that military-issued weddings are that much more prized to the State as legitimate unions and that they do, indeed, involve a certain dress code. Higher-ups will no doubt take the opportunity to at the very least pin some of Edward’s long-forgotten bravery medals on whatever civilian garment is deemed appropriate for him to wear while clipping a silver sword he doesn’t know how to use to Roy’s side for the sake of a pretty picture, but, well. He’ll drag Ed kicking and screaming over that particular bridge when they get there. 

“Let’s have a vowing competition,” He adds after a second of nibbling on his lower lip, letting his mouth spread out in a wolfish grin. “we’ll put it up for a vote on like, most epic ever-after speech or whatever. Whoever loses has to be the others sex slave for all eternity.” 

Roy, despite himself, jots the prize down. “Lest we get a divorce,” He says. Edward snorts.

“You don’t seem to grasp the concept of _slavery_ — Oh, yeah, you also have to take me on a trip somewhere. Honeymoon shit.” He bats his hand. 

Roy gestures expansively with his palm. “The world is your oyster,” 

“The fuck is an oyster,” Ed bites before moving to take a long, luscious gulp of his cider until the glass is near empty. A nervous gesture, most likely, but Roy doesn’t get enough time to stress about it before he licks his lips and moves on. “Let’s go to Xing or something. Great excuse to visit some people, you know?” He scratches his arm. “Like Ling and stuff… If his agenda lets him.” 

Roy annotates. Edward never talks about it, but he must feel rather strongly about the prospect of reconnecting with one of the only real friends his age he’s ever had, and so the trip must be placed at the very top of the list. 

“And no waltzing.” Ed declares while scrutinizing the sink on the far end of the kitchen. “Roy?” He looks up from where the phrase _some waltzing_ has been written down to lock his eyes on Edward’s. “No. Fucking. Waltzing. I’d rather you make a ring of fire and have me try to jump through it in front of everyone than waltzing. Understood?”

Roy takes the liberty of underlining the word _some_. “Understood,” He smiles, because attempting to show Ed how to ease himself into the grace of ballroom dancing would also be too big a pleasure. Placing a steady hand on the small of his back as he complained and grumbled but nonetheless blushed through all the motions… Perhaps his withering heart is too ragged for this. 

“But I _could_ make a ring of fire for you — for showmanship’s sake. Any figure, really. Or I might at least try; it would be great practice.” 

“Knock yourself out. If we ever land ourselves in poverty, you’ll join the circus to sustain us,” Ed says, finger pointed. “that’s non-negotiable and a promise you have to utter in front of the ordained minister.” 

Roy writes down _circus_ and immediately forgets why this list ever came to exist in the first place. 

Ed grins. “You’ll be the flaming pony this country desperately needs.” 

“ _Pony_ ” Roy declares as he walks back towards the table, clusterfuck wedding-kit list in hand. “could very well come to be your official last name if that ever happened, so do think about it,” 

“I ain’t taking no last names, bastard,” Ed tells him. “I didn’t take my idiot father’s and I sure as hell won’t tarnish the one I’ve got for one so prone to terrible puns,” 

“Are you admitting to the sorry quality of your very own quips, Edward?” 

“It’s the name. You don’t give me anything to work with — _shut up,_ ” He hisses at the sight of Roy’s quirking mouth. He’s a flawed human, but a gentleman nonetheless, so he lets it go. 

“Well this is a proper mess,” He muses, and it’s then that Ed smiles at him, sharp, sure, obliterating. 

“Quelle-fuckin’-surprise, dumbass.” He says. “You suck at this.” 

Roy takes a moment but doesn’t let it elongate into any serious amount of contemplation or rehearsal. To hell with it. The best things in this so-called relationship of theirs have always arisen from his apparent worse ideas. When he thought he’d finally managed to push Edward away for good, having had enough of his messy eating and forcefully seizing both his wrists with an exasperated grip when the little shit had the audacity to stick his tongue out in the midst of chewing, Ed’s unmistakable hardness pressed against his thigh after a few seconds of heated, snarl-filled struggling that started around the table, migrated across the room and ended on the carpet. His pupils blew up, like a cat chasing specters in the dark, seconds away from going haywire. 

It had probably always been this way. 

The anger. The heated bickering. The crackling air between their unofficial glaring competitions. 

All that, barely kept together by tight belts and crips uniforms and thick gloves, so when their bare hands finally touched it was painfully clear that that’d been the first time — that that _meant_ something. Roy’s thumbs pressed against Edward’s pumping veins, his fingers curled around his wrist in a hold he soon found he’d have a lot of trouble letting go of. A few minutes more of struggling on the ground like that and Ed would’ve just come on his leg — Roy Mustang went insane with the realization, he surrendered to his imminent implosion and laughed and groaned and kissed his former subordinate like he was dying. He probably was, because a lost jigsaw piece cannot possibly wander around its own denial for an entire lifetime. 

All of this goes to say they’re both beyond a funny little thing of a notion called self-consciousness, so he simply says it.

“I promise I won’t suck as bad as a married man.” 

Ed could very well turn that into a dirty joke. He doesn’t, and that’s probably also charged with some significance. 

Roy turns to face him, letting go of the last of his petty qualms. He sees Ed’s face half obscured by some loose strands of hair as he looks down at his plate. One minute it was simply dinner — common enough, comfortable. Now the leftovers seem to hold some ominous subtext that Ed rummages through with his sight in search for answers, idly picking at his plate’s corner. 

Roy doesn’t want to regret ripping his heart out and forcibly sticking it to his sleeve — ever. No matter the outcome, no matter if Edward suddenly bursts into laughter. Alas, old habits die hard, slow, painful, so it’s with some trepidation that he keeps his gaze on Ed as he speaks up, his usual tenor suddenly low and wary. 

“So you really mean it?” He asks.

“Which part,” Roy stupidly digresses, turning a pointed look at the list of all the impossible things he would do for Ed without a second's hesitance. It doesn’t matter because Ed still hears the unspoken answer. _Yes, persistently, unendingly, categorically; yes._

He shifts in his seat, turning to glance at the watch hung on the wall next to him for a silent stretch. “What d’you think Al’s gonna say.” He finally mumbles to keep the shakiness of his voice as strained as possible. It’s not the first time Roy is overcome with the urge to scoop him up in his arms and press his lips against every single inch of his skin, so that all the doubt and shame that unjustly riddles him might run out of space in which to live and be forcibly pushed into exile. 

“I don’t know,” He answers instead — because it’s the truth, not because he wants to distress him any more than what his usual levels of self-inflicted anguish already do. “It might never stop being embarrassing to love someone this much,” He admits — which is a far cry from the simple arts of cohabitation, sex, and convenience marriages, but it is also not a lie. 

This garners Ed’s full attention. His mouth falls open and his eyes glimmer with sharp uncertainty when his head shoots back. Roy doesn’t care. Neither of them are fast enough to outrun the fact that their supposed hate-sex stopped being hateful quite some time ago. That all they were left with after that was... them. 

This had been a long time coming.

Ed swallows. 

“You don't have to say it back,” Roy tells him, because he doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need much else besides the mere gravity with which Edward sits with his heels placen on the chair. A horrid, childish, uncourteous position he doesn’t want him ever doing it in any dining room but _his_. 

Edward mildly shrugs after a few moments. “Guess not.” He smiles when their eyes finally meet again. “It wouldn’t surprise your smug ass, anyway.” 

Roy smiles back, and maybe they go to bed together after clearing the table and doing the dishes. They doze to each other's rhythmic breathing and maybe Ed waits until he thinks Roy is fast asleep to whisper _I love you, too,_ with the tips of his fingers softly pressed against his sternum. Maybe Roy pretends he didn’t hear it, same as he pretends it doesn’t shock him just a tad. 


End file.
